When Jakob Ingebrigtsen arrived in Nanjing a few days ago, he had never won a gold medal at the World Indoor Championships. Yet after a busy weekend he now has two after adding the 1500m title on Sunday (March 23) to the 3000m crown he captured 24 hours earlier.
Ingebrigtsen has been out-kicked in major championships in recent years. Samuel Tefera, for example, beat him to the world indoor title three years ago in Belgrade. But Ingebrigtsen seemed to have great confidence in his finishing speed in Nanjing and in the 1500m he clocked 3:38.79 ahead of Britain’s Neil Gourley and America’s Luke Houser.
The early pace was slow as Sam Prakl of the United States passed 400m in 62 seconds. Ingebrigtsen took the lead just before 700m and passed 800m in 2:02. Then he began to wind things up.
On the final lap the 24-year-old held off Isaac Nader, the Portuguese runner eventually fading to fourth. Gourley ran a smart race, deliberately shadowing Ingebrigtsen in the early stages, before using his strong finish to take silver in 3:39.07.
Ingebrigtsen said: “There were nine strong runners and everyone was ready to give their best. It was fun out there. I really enjoy the sport of running and at the end of the day it’s a competition.”
Jakob Ingebrigtsen (Getty)
Ingebrigtsen became only the second man in history after Haile Gebrselassie to win two gold medals in individual events at the World Indoor Championships. He said: “Of course this is something special. It’s a very difficult to compare yourself against history and what others are doing. I’m only focusing on myself and I feel good to have done a lot of preparations, and that was always the main goal. It’s not to do with something somebody else did before.
“I think I can do more, so I’ll try to maximise that and grab the opportunity given to me. The goal is to participate as much as I can. It’s definitely important to use the opportunities and not take anything for granted.”
After finishing fourth in Apeldoorn earlier this month, Gourley said: “I had a point to prove after the European Indoor Champs. Not so much to anyone else, but moreso to myself and my team who helped me get here.
“Here I fed off Jakob’s momentum rather than looking behind waiting for him to come through.”
Looking back at 2024, he said: “I could barely walk this time last year due to a really bad injury and the World Indoors was in my home town of Glasgow. So I went in with the mentality this timee that it was a bonus being here and that anything was possible.”
Neil Gourley (Getty)
Unlike Ingebrigtsen, Gudaf Tsegay did not fancy letting the women’s 1500m final come down to a sprint. The Ethiopian set off at a furious pace, through 200m in 30.00, 400m in 60.50 and slowing slightly through 800m in 2:03.44 – only marginally slower than the pace in the men’s 1500m final.
Behind, Diribe Welteji of Ethiopia and Georgia Griffith of Australia were isolated chasers in second and third, with Georgia Hunter Bell of Britain leading the rest of the field a few metres behind in fourth.
As Tsegay passed the kilometre mark in 2:35.71, though, Hunter Bell caught Welteji and Griffith as the battle for the minor medals warmed up.
Up ahead, Tsegay cruised home in a championship record of 3:54.86, no doubt keen to make up for a disappointing Olympic year where she fell well outside the medals in the 1500m, 5000m and 10,000m in Paris.
Diribe Welteji, Gudaf Tsegay, Georgia Hunter Bell (Getty)
Behind, Welteji broke clear of Hunter Bell and Griffith in the latter stages to take silver in 3:59.30 as Hunter Bell clocked a PB of 3:59.84 to earn bronze just two weeks after finishing a disappointed fourth in the European Indoor Championships while struggling with illness.
Griffith ended up outside the medals in fourth but was rewarded for her bold tactics by clocking an Oceania record of 4:00.80.
“It was not an easy race, this was a fast time, so I’m very happy about that,” said Tsegay. “Athletes go through ups and downs, injuries, challenges, it’s no problem. I prefer the indoors. For outdoors, I’ll do the 800m or 10,000m. But indoors, I like the 1500m.”
Gudaf Tsegay (Getty)
“The 1500m is a riddle,” said Hunter Bell. “It can go anyway and you never know what will happen until it starts. I preferred it being a hard run, though. I felt I could be competitive and I’m really happy with the result.”
She added: “This medal absolutely feels like a redemption. I really want to bounce back.”
Georgia Hunter Bell (Getty)
Josh Hoey of the United States has been one of the breakthrough athletes of the indoor season and he took gold in the 800m in Nanjing in 1:44.77 after having passed 400m in 50.84 with team-mate Brandon Miller.
Hoey tied up in the latter stages but grimly held on as Elliott Crestan of Belgium finished strongly for silver in 1:44.77 with Elvan Canales of Spain taking bronze.
Josh Hoey (Getty)
Prudence Sekgodiso of South Africa won a similarly exciting women’s 800m in 1:58.40. Nigist Getachew of Ethiopia led through 400m in 55.88 from reigning champion Tsige Duguma of Ethiopia, but while Duguma blew up to finish last, Sekgodiso came through to win.
Prudence Sekgodiso (Getty)
Devynne Charlton of Bahamas won one of the most anticipated races of the weekend when she captured the women’s 60m hurdles crown in 7.72.
Devynne Charlton (Getty)
Only four hundredths of a second separated the top six athletes as Ditaji Kambundji of Switzerland finished runner-up in 7.73, Ackera Nugent of Jamaica third in 7.74, Pia Skrzyszowska with a Polish record of 7.75 in fourth, Grace Stark of the United States fifth in 7.75 and Nadine Visser sixth in 7.76.
“It was a big deal for me to come here and show up, defend my title,” said Charlton. “It was a big goal for me. It wasn’t looking great, but I trusted the people around me and I was able to pull it off. It’s definitely super hard to defend a title, at an event like this. The women always show up, in track and field, on the whole, to come away with a win against these ladies, it’s really cool.”
Nadine Visser and Devynne Charlton (Getty)
Elsewhere, Tom Walsh of New Zealand took men’s shot put gold with 21.65m ahead of United States duo Roger Steen and Adrian Piperi.
Mattia Furlani took gold for Italy in the men’s long jump with 8.30m as Wayne Pinnock of Jamaica was only one centimetre behind in second place and Liam Adcock of Australia a further centimetre behind in third as double Olympic champion Miltos Tentoglou of Greece was fifth with 8.14m.
Sander Skotheim added the world indoor title to the European crown he won in Apeldoorn. Here the Norwegian scored 6475 to beat Johannes Erm of Estonia (6437) as Germany’s Till Steinforth took bronze (6275).
Sander Skotheim (Getty)
Earlier in the day there were surprises in the women’s jumps when Nicola Olyslagers of Australia took high jump gold with world record-holder and Olympic champion Yaroslava Mahuchikh of Ukraine finishing third, whereas the relatively unheralded Claire Bryant won the long jump on her major championship debut for the United States.
In her first competition since September, Olyslagers successfully defended the title that she won in Glasgow in 2024 when she cleared 1.97m in Nanjing to win on countback ahead of Australian team-mate Eleanor Patterson.
Mahuchikh, meanwhile, struggled with an ankle problem to produce a best of 1.95m to take bronze by countback ahead of Serbia’s Angelina Topic.
Olyslagers said: “I was really inspired by Yaroslava’s world record attempts last year, and how she changed her run-up. So, I was jumping with a new run-up today. I want to jump as high as Yaroslava – if I want to be competitive, I need to be trying and changing things up.”
Bryant, 23, led from the first round in the long jump and set a PB of 6.96m in the fifth round as Switzerland’s Annik Kalin took silver and Spain’s Fatima Diame bronze.
“If someone had told me that I would walk away from Nanjing with the title, I would thank them for that vote of confidence,” said Bryant. “I didn’t come in with expectations, I just wanted to enjoy the moment. Every part of this is so cool.”
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